My minor malfunction here is that, if I want anything bought from iTunes, it has to go onto an iDevice. If I want to play the movie I purchased, I have to burn it to DVD or put it on the iAppleTV; it can’t go on the much cheaper Linux media station or more powerful Archos device. If I want to play music, same deal. That’s no problem for the iHeads, but I’ve got some applications that I don’t need an iDevice for, and can handle music and/or video.

So, yeah, I think there are a good many more people out there using proprietary Janus (iRiver, Archos, Nokia, Toshiba, Creative Zen, Dell, Samsung) than the proprietary FairPlay (iPod, iPhone, Motorola), even when you adjust for hefty market share the iPod commands. Isn’t Microsoft supposed to be the asshole forcing everyone to stick with Gate’s hardware and software?

My major malfunction is that I just can’t handle the damned files. It’s a USB or Firewire device, USB and Firewire mass storage has been around for longer than many of these models. My ‘el cheapo’ Teclast t29 can let me handle things on a file levels (and its bass actually works — take that, iNano!), as can everything ranging from a Nokia 770 to an Archos 202 or 604. I don’t mind the option of irritating animated bloatware just to sideload three new songs, but being forced to use it, or go hunting online for complex software, just to move a file onto a glorified USB hard drive…

I also personally find Quicktime to be up there with Adobe Acrobat reader in terms of stupid bloatware that shouldn’t be autoloading itself at boot by default, but that’s another issue.

I don’t think you need to argue that Windows sucks arse. It’s kinda a given — in related news, the clear sky is blue, grass in green when it gets water, and the Brady campaign can’t tell its backside from an atlas — but that doesn’t make up for the iShit being barely better.

Hello, Pot? Yeah… um… this is kettle. You’re black.

The only DRM Apple uses is in iTMS - and that’s only for songs you buy, and only if the label selling them requires it (which most do as of now).

But the alternative, assuming one doesn’t just steal it from the internet or buy a CD, is either a) not having the music at all or b) having to pay every month until the end of time to “keep” a license for “your music” (ala Napster). Companies selling music to Windows users with DRM’d WMV are not superior to Apple because they use different DRM, are they? The solution to not liking DRM’d music is to not buy any.

SayUncle: If you bought or use a WMA-only music player, I think the person to blame here is yourself.

That’s even worse (the WMA restriction) than what jon and gattsuru are accusing Apple of (I assume they refer to the DRM on iTMS-downloaded AAC files, at least the majority still covered by DRM requirements in the labels’ contracts - nothing else I’ve ever seen from Apple is DRM’d).

AAC is at least an open and standard format (used in MPEG-4 video, for instance), while nobody but Microsoft (and their partners) has ever used WMA.

(Back to the topic, I think the iPhone is brilliant in terms of design and concept, but the value isn’t there for me.

Considering how mind-bogglingly awful every “smartphone” UI I’ve ever seen is (even non-smartphones, in fact), Apple raising the UI bar is a win for everyone in the long run, even if you never own an iPhone.)

They have good products and great marketing.
But their software and DRM still sucks ass.

Even without the stupid DRM’d Apple software, I just can’t bring myself to pay 600 USD for a phone that’s locked into a single purchasing plan, or an 8 gigabyte music or video player, or a wussified internet browser. When I can get something that does all these functions better, I just don’t see a reason to pay an arm and a leg.